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Moscow: Russia's military announced plans on Tuesday to station about 7,600 troops in Georgia's separatist regions, a sharp increase on the numbers deployed before Moscow sent in troops last month.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov troops would stay in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for a long time to prevent any "repeat of Georgian aggression".
Moscow's intervention in Georgia last month, in which its forces crushed an attempt by Tbilisi to retake South Ossetia, drew widespread international condemnation and prompted concern over the security of energy supplies.
Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced the planned force levels one day after French President Nicolas Sarkozy left Moscow with a commitment from the Kremlin to withdraw from undisputed Georgian territory within a month.
But there was no explicit mention in the French-brokered deal of the Russian forces inside breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia, despite previous Western demands that all troops return to their pre-conflict positions.
Briefing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on negotiations with the regions' leaders, Serdyukov said: "We have already agreed on the contingent - in the region of 3,800 men in each republic - and on its structure and location."
Medvedev ordered Serdyukov to determine how Russia would implement a request from South Ossetia and Abkhazia "to deploy bases" in those regions.
Russia angered the West last month by recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which threw off Tbilisi's rule in separatist wars in the 1990s, as independent states. Nicaragua is the only other state to have recognised their independence.
Lavrov was due to meet the two separatist regions' foreign ministers on Tuesday to formally establish diplomatic ties.
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